Demand-driven funding arrangements in Australia’s higher education sector have given more weight to student decisions and behaviours, making student engagement a vital part of institutions’ competitiveness, a conference in Melbourne heard in October.

ACER and the LH Martin Institute hosted a two-day conference on higher education student engagement. Speaking ahead of the conference, Associate Professor Hamish Coates, ACER Higher Education Research Director and LH Martin Institute Program Director, said new regulatory and competitive contexts emerging in Australia and around the world are creating an urgent need to be efficient, to grow and to improve.

‘We’re in a higher education growth phase that is essential to social and economic growth, and environmental sustainability,’ Associate Professor Coates said.

‘A major key to enduring prosperity lies in taking better leadership of student engagement.’

Associate Professor Coates’ presentation focused on trends in student engagement and outcomes measurement. He said that, over the last 30 years, there has been a shift from a period where little data was collected, to one where satisfaction or ‘happiness’ was measured, to the current focus on measuring effectiveness.

Associate Professor Coates was joined by higher education experts and stakeholders at the conference, where they discussed challenges around student engagement and shared strategic insights to further improve the quality of Australian higher education.

Opening the conference, Emeritus Professor Alan Robson from the LH Martin Institute said that the quality of the student experience is the defining difference between institutions.

Professor Richard James from the University of Melbourne said that ‘engaged moments’ happen for different students in different places at different times, and that engagement levels are unlikely to be static, rather they have peaks and troughs. He said that the diversification of the student body means there is no one-size-fits-all approach to improving engagement. He noted that, in light of the increase in the number of students with an ATAR lower than 60 entering university, the problem institutions face is not one of low socio-economic status, but one of low preparedness for study.

Professor Sally Kift from James Cook University then discussed the importance of successfully transitioning first year students into university study. Noting that student engagement varies more within institutions than it does between them, she said that the curriculum should be intentionally designed to support students and foster engagement.

‘Once students come to our door the educational conditions we have put in place dictate their success,’ Professor Kift said.

Similarly, the Commonwealth Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education’s David de Carvalho said that teachers are the most important factor in creating student engagement, with good teachers able to inspire interest in mundane topics while ineffective teachers kill interest in the most topical subjects.

Mr de Carvalho then discussed the changes to the higher education sector since the introduction of demand-driven funding arrangements. He outlined the Commonwealth government’s new measure of student experience, the University Experience Survey (UES), the 2011 pilot of which found more than 84 per cent of students were satisfied with teaching and learning at their institution. With results of the 2012 administration currently being analysed, Mr de Carvalho told delegates that the higher education sector will be consulted on reporting arrangements.

During her presentation on widening participation, Professor Kerri-Lee Krause from the University of Western Sydney said it is vital that governance and policy are enablers, not inhibitors, of student engagement. Discussing the relationship between quality and competitiveness, she said it is important that universities engage their staff to engage their students. Echoing sentiments expressed earlier by Professor Leo Goedegebuure from the LH Martin Institute, who warned against institutions substantially increasing enrolments without also increasing staffing levels, Professor Krause told delegates, ‘If you’re going to embark on a growth agenda you need to be pretty sure you’ve got the resources to support that growth.’

The issue of inclusive practice was touched on by several speakers, including Dr Nadine Zacharias from Deakin University, who said it was time to change the ways universities ‘do business’ in order to ensure accessibility, inclusion and engagement for all students. In their presentation of Indigenous students’ engagement with university, Dr Christine Asmar from the University of Melbourne and Dr Susan Page from Macquarie University highlighted research that calls for a whole-of-university approach to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student success, involving both faculties and student services working with Indigenous centres.

The 4^th National Student Engagement Conference, on the theme Enhancing retention and outcomes in a competitive environment, at the Sebel and Citigate Albert Park in Melbourne on 30 and 31 October 2012 brought together representatives from 12 Australian higher education institutions and seven organisations involved in the sector to present at the conference. Presentation slides from some speakers will be available online soon, while the full conference program and list of speakers, is available now from http://www.acer.edu.au/student-engagement

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